Saturday, January 18, 2014

Sláine: Book of Scars
marks 30 years of the Celtic barbarian’s adventures with an anniversary book that
brings together a new story from creator Pat Mills and the biggest artists to
have worked on Sláine over the past three decades (now available from 2000AD
£19.99):

“Along with his odious sidekick Ukko the Dwarf, Sláine has
endured 30 years of trials across the ages as he has served the Earth goddess,
Danu, both as High King of Ireland and as a time-travelling warrior.

The Book of Scars sees
Sláine return to the most pivotal moments of his life where he has to face off
against his greatest foes – illustrated by Mick McMahon, Glenn Fabry, Simon
Bisley, and Clint Langley, the artists who secured the character’s name in the
annuls of British comics history.

This book also collects every Sláine cover ever to grace the front of 2000 AD, as well as some stunning pin-ups, sketches and rarities.
Artists, writers, editors, and famous fans all contribute their own thoughts on
what makes Sláine such a great star of British weekly comic.”

The Emperor of all
Things by Paul Witcover is out from Bantam (£8.99):

“1758. England is embroiled in a globe-spanning conflict
that stretches from her North American colonies to Europe and beyond. Across
the Channel, the French prepare for an invasion — an invasion rumoured to be
led by none other than Bonnie Prince Charlie. It seems the map of Europe is
about to be redrawn. Yet behind these dramatic scenes, another war is raging –
a war that will determine not just the fate of nations but of humanity
itself...

Daniel Quare is a journeyman in an ancient guild, The
Worshipful Company of Clockmakers. He is also a Regulator, part of an elite
network within the guild devoted to searching out and claiming for England's
exclusive use any horological innovation that could give them an upper hand,
whether in business or in war.

Just such a mission has brought Quare to the London
townhouse of eccentric collector, Lord Wichcote. He seeks a pocket watch
rumoured to possess seemingly impossible properties that are more to do with
magic than with any science familiar to Quare or to his superiors. And the
strange timepiece has attracted the attention of others as well: the mysterious
masked thief known only as Grimalkin, and a deadly French spy who stop at
nothing to bring the prize back to his masters.”

Breach Zone is the
third book in Myke Cole's Shadow Ops
series, due later this month from Headline (£7.99):

“The Great Reawakening introduced magic into an already
volatile world. Many of those with new-found powers have been conscripted by the
US Army ... but when the barriers between our reality and the source of this
magic starts to fall, they will have to decide who they are really fighting
for.”

The People’s Will by Jasper Kent (Bantam £8.99) is the fourth
volume in the Danilov Quintet:

“Turkmenistan 1881: Beneath the
citadel of Geok Tepe sits a prisoner. He hasn’t moved from his chair for two
years, hasn’t felt the sun on his face in more than fifty, but he is thankful
for that. The city is besieged by Russian troops and soon falls. But one
Russian officer has his own reason to be here. Colonel Otrepyev marches into
the underground gaol, but for the prisoner it does not mean freedom, simply a
new gaoler; an old friend, now an enemy. They return to Russia to meet an older
enemy still.

In Saint Petersburg, the great
vampire Zmyeevich waits as he has always waited. He knows he will never wield
power over Tsar Aleksandr II, but the tsarevich will be a different matter.
When Otrepyev delivers the prisoner into his hands, Zmyeevich will have everything
he needs. Then all that need happen is for the tsar to die.

But it is not only the Otrepyev
and his captive who have returned from Geok Tepe. Another soldier has followed
them, one who cares nothing for the fate of the tsar, nor for Zmyeevich, nor for
Otrepyev. He has only one thing on his mind – revenge.”

Ex-Purgatory by Peter Clines (Del Rey £7.99) is the latest in the Ex series:

“George Bailey is an ordinary
guy, working the nine to five as a handyman and trying to make the best of the
little he’s got. But when he sleeps, he dreams of fire and flying, of zombies
and superheroes.

When the two realities start to merge, George begins to question if he’s gone
mad.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Europe in Autumn by Dave Hutchinson is published next month by
Solaris (£7.99).

“Rudi is a cook in a Kraków
restaurant, but when his boss asks Rudi to help a cousin escape from the
country he’s trapped in a new career – part spy, part people-smuggler.

Following multiple economic
crises and a devastating flu pandemic, Europe has fractured into countless tiny
nations, duchies, polities and republics. Recruited by the shadowy organisation
Les Coureurs des Bois, Rudi is schooled in espionage, but when a training
mission to The Line, a sovereign nation consisting of a trans-Europe railway
line, goes wrong, he is arrested and beaten, and Coureur Central must attempt a
rescue.

With so many nations to work
in, and identities to assume, Rudi is kept busy travelling across Europe. But
when he is sent to smuggle someone out of Berlin and finds a severed head
inside a locker instead, a conspiracy begins to wind itself around him.”

God’s War by Kameron Hurley (a British Fantasy Award winner) is
out from Del Rey at £8.99.

“Nyx is a bel dame, a bounty
hunter paid to collect the heads of deserters – by almost any means necessary.
‘Almost’ proved to be the problem.

Cast out and imprisoned for breaking one
rule too many, Nyx and her crew of mercenaries are all about the money. But
when a dubious government deal with an alien emissary goes awry, her name is at
the top of the list for a covert recovery.

While the centuries-long war
rages on only one thing is certain: the world’s best chance for peace rests in
the hands of its most ruthless killers.”

“Fledgling witch Morgana must defend her love, her home, and
her life ‘Wild places make wild people, but only some have magic blood. There
are those with frozen hearts, whose souls know only winter. They would drive me
from my home. It will not do. Really, it will not.’

In her small Welsh town, there is no one quite like Morgana.
She has not spoken a word out loud since she was a child, and her silence – as well
as the magic she can't quite control – makes her an oddity, taunted by rumour
and mystery. Concerned for her safety, her mother arranges for Morgana to marry
Cai Jenkins, the widower from the far hills who knows nothing of the nasty
things folk say about her daughter.

After a swift wedding, Cai takes his new wife to his farm.
Initially heartbroken to leave her home, Morgana soon begins to falls in love
with the place, and the rugged mountains that surround it – just as Cai slowly
begins to win her heart. But it isn't long before her strangeness begins to be
remarked upon. A dark force is at work – a person who will stop at nothing to
turn the townspeople against Morgana, even at the expense of those closest to
her. Forced to defend her home, her lover, and herself from all comers, Morgana
must learn to harness her power ... or lose everything.”

A limited signed, hardcover edition of Invent-10n by Rod Rees is now available from The Alchemy Press -- signed by Rees as well as the book's designers and artist. The print run is 100 copies and is only available from the publisher. A paperback edition is also available for around £11 from Amazon, The Book Depository and other online dealers.

"Greetings Gate, let’s Agitate. Look
over your shoulder. Do you see the camera? Then dig that even as you read these
words of sedition and denial you are being watched by the ever e-quisitive
National Protection Agency. The National Protection Agency – omnipresent,
omniscient and most ominous – which runs PanOptika, the spider at the centre of
the Web.

PanOptika. What’s the slogan: watching
out for the good guys by watching out for the bad guys. But what did that Roman
word-slinger, Juvenal say? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes: who
watches the watchers?

So dig this to the extremity,
cats and kittens: if we do nothing soon we must kneel, digitally-dutiful,
before National Protection, and then there will be no chance to zig when the
ChumBots say zag, or to beep when they say bop. Realise thou that PanOptika
triumphant means we will not be able to think, to act, to speak or to move
without the spirit-sapping realisation that the badniks know everything …
everything.

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The Alchemy Press/ Peter Coleborn

British independent press: The Alchemy Press, run by Peter Coleborn. I have edited and produced titles for the British Fantasy Society (including Dark Horizons, Winter Chills and Chills). I have chaired both the BFS and the annual British Fantasy Convention. I write fiction, reviews, edit manuscripts (including line edits) for other writers, co-created and chair a writers' group. In 2009 I sat as one of the judges for the prestigious World Fantasy Awards ... And I also take photographs.